"For God and Home and Native Land": The Haudenosaunee and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, 1884–1921

This article examines two Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois) women, Eliza Pierce and Lydia Pierce (unrelated), within the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Their participation in an ostensibly assimilationist, progressive institution was balanced by congruities between traditional Haudenosaunee cultural elements and the activities of the WCTU. I argue that while both women were Christians and supporters of Euro-American educational practices, they worked to preserve many traditions of the Iroquois, notably women's participation in the political and familial realms. Thus, Haudenosaunee WCTU members both defended and redefined tradition while asserting their place in the twentieth-century United States.